Page 68 of Darkest Heart

My hair caught around my face as I slipped back under the depths. Hamza attempted to resurface, but I grabbed his face before he could. His power wasn’t as strong here, and surprised glistened in those vile eyes. He opened his mouth, bubbles surrounding us as he fought me off, an enraged scream gurgling. I glanced at his chest, remembering Valeria’s words.

I tore open his shirt, buttons flung off, floating away from us, and I found his chest. Pain sliced into my back, crimson coloring the water as he clawed at my skin. My power thrusted me forward, my head pounding from holding my breath for too long. I dug into his chest and he kicked his legs against me. I tore through flesh first, then muscle. I jolted as the memory of the boy I’d murdered came back to my mind.

Not now.

I pushed it away, digging deeper, carving through muscle and ribs until I found his deceivingly mortal heart. It raced as I gripped it, and suddenly I was holding the boy’s heart again.

My lips parted, water pouring over my tongue, salt coating my throat.

It’s Hamza. He deserves to die.Blood flowed from his chest as I tugged his heart away. I could feel movement in the water, and I let Hamza’s float away. I kicked against the current, his heart gripped between my fingers. I sucked in a deep breath when I finally broke to the surface, exhaustion gripping me.

It took all my magic to get away from him and pull myself ashore. Every single ounce. I dropped to my knees, never feeling so physically or mentally weak as the adrenaline wore off. The only thing that kept me sluggishly moving was knowing I’d heard Sebastian’s voice. He was here, and I had to get to him.

TWENTY-THREE

Sebastian

Zach cut off the last aniccipere’s head as we stood in the middle of a town at the end of the kingdom. Evidence of recent feeds littered the ground, the streets soaked in blood. Shock plucked my skin into goosebumps when I looked at the boy who’d run into us mid-fight. My brows pinched down as I took in the boy, his eyes narrowing as he watched me frozen.

I’d almost gotten us killed. “Zach,” I said croakily. My voice was all dried up. I had screamed Olivia’s name so many times as the aniccipere were slaughtered by us and some soldiers. It was an ambush. They’d waited for us, which meant we were close. “Take him.” I pointed at the young boy, who was almost a copy of my long-dead brother.

Zach placed his sword back in his scabbard, then grabbed the boy. Tears swam in his eyes, and I wondered how he’d survived out here. “I’ll take him to the guards. I’ll come right back.”

I nodded. The other towns would be safer.

Pink and red streaked the sky as morning finally came.

“Are you okay?” Erianna asked once they were gone. She wiped her forehead, smearing a trail of blood down into her brows. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

I hunched over, closing my eyes. She was right. I’d put us in danger. But I hadn’t expected to see a mortal during the fight, let alone a kid. “He needed saving.”

She let out a sigh, sitting herself down on a rotting bench. “I know.”

Flashes of memories played in my mind, and I closed my eyes as if to lose myself in them. “He looked like my brother. He even had the same…expression. It’s just…”

“You don’t need to explain yourself,” she said, cutting me off. “Our old life catches up with us occasionally. Besides, if you hadn’t gotten him away from that aniccipere, I would have.”

“I’m glad I did it, because I wished someone would have done the same for Liam.” I hadn’t said my brother’s name in years. Hearing it aloud made me realize how open that wound still was.

“I know.”

“Olivia,” I said, but my head pounded. The shock of seeing him opening something deep. “We need to go.”

“One minute.” She tended to her wounds, ones I hadn’t noticed until now. She didn’t even wince. “I need to heal. So do you.”

I wasn’t hurt anywhere, save for a few scratches. But I knew what she meant. My heart ached as I thought about my family. So often, I would forget in the day to day. Especially when I was with Olivia. But the memories of them haunted me. Erianna stretched out her legs, holding her palm over a deep cut as it slowly healed.

She licked her lips, rolling her head back, gazing at the sky. “It’s okay to think about them. We’ll find Olivia. We’re close.”

I shook my head, sadness climbing through my soul. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Your family was slaughtered. It’s going to hurt sometimes. It’s good to let it in.”

“I should, yet I walk around with the ones who killed him. Velda still parades around freely, playing games. Death isn’t a thought to her. She acts like she did me a favor, sparing me, but she does not know what she took from me that day.” I watched Erianna’s lips tighten into a hard line, the outburst taking us both by surprise.

For so long, I’d pushed the pain down until I forgot I was still broken. I’d become comfortable in the silent suffering, acting as if I didn’t have a death wish. A mortal wish. Because Erianna knew the truth, as did Zach. It was the only reason they agreed to help me get Olivia from Baldoria that day. I wanted my mortality back. For the longest time, it was my only goal. Dying immortal was never an option. Velda had committed a worse crime than just taking my family from me. She ensured I would never see them again. The only afterlife that awaited me was the darkness of the underworld. When mortals died, their loved ones could at least find some comfort that they’d see them again one day. That was stolen from me.

My family was forever out of reach, and in marrying Olivia, I’d agreed to never being mortal again. For love. It was the only thing I would sacrifice anything for, yet sometimes, I still caught myself wishing that I was dead. Mortal dead. So I could reunite with my brothers, and my parents again. I climbed my gaze into the heavens, at the sunlight peeking over the mountains, forgetting the surrounding carnage.

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